(No) English interference on U.S. Southwest Spanish? A look at variable subject expression in Phoenix Spanish-English bilinguals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v10i3.28327Keywords:
Sociolinguistics, syntactic variation, subject pronoun expression, southwest SpanishAbstract
Subject pronoun expression (SPE) is one of the most studied variables in Spanish sociolinguistics, in the production of both monolingual and bilingual speakers. In the case of U.S. Spanish-English bilinguals, some studies suggest that the almost categorical use of English overt subject personal pronouns (SPPs) boosts the SPP rate in the Spanish of these speakers, whereas some other studies do not support such claim. Aiming to shed light on this subject, the present analysis of SPE in Phoenix is a variationist contribution to the literature on bilingual SPE in the U.S. Although the factors favoring SPP occurrence in the Spanish of Phoenix coincide for the most part with those attested across Spanish varieties, compared to other U.S.-bilingual Spanish varieties accounted for, it shows the lowest rate of overt SPPs: 17.8%, even lower than monolingual Mexican varieties. In addition, Spanish-dominant speakers in Phoenix favor overt SPPs, whereas English-dominant bilinguals disfavor them. When separate regression analyses were run for each proficiency group, it was found that both share virtually the same constraints contributing to the presence of the overt variant. These results do not support the contact claim. Since the Phoenix bilinguals pattern with other U.S. Southwest communities with regard to the aforementioned trends, it is suggested that proximity to the border may neutralize the SPE English effect in the Spanish of these communities, in contrast to communities that lack such regional traits, like New York and Florida.References
Abreu, L. (2012) Subject pronoun expression and priming effects among bilingual speakers of Puerto Rican Spanish. In K. Geeslin and M. Díaz-Campos (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 1–8. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Anderson, H. (2013) La in?uencia de la persona gramatical sobre la expresión del pronombre sujeto en el español del sur de Arizona. Divergencias: Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios 11(1): 35–47.
Bayley, R., Cárdenas, N. L., Treviño Schouten, B., and Vélez Salas, C. M. (2012) Spanish dialect contact in San Antonio, Texas: An exploratory study. In K. Geeslin and M. Díaz-Campos (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 48–60. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Bayley, R. and Pease-Álvarez, L. (1997) Null pronoun variation in Mexican-descent children’s narrative discourse. Language Variation and Change 9(3): 349–371. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001964.
Bentivoglio, P. (1987) Los sujetos pronominales de primera persona en el habla de Caracas. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Consejo de Desarrollo Cientí?co y Humanístico.
Cameron, R. (1993) Ambiguous agreement, functional compensation, and nonspeci?c tú in the Spanish of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Madrid, Spain. Language Variation and Change 5: 305–334. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001526.
Cameron, R. and Flores-Ferrán, N. (2004) Perseveration of subject expression across regional dialects of Spanish. Spanish in Context 1: 41–65. https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.1.1.05cam.
Carvalho, A. M. and Bessett, R. M. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish in contact with Portuguese. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco, and N. Lapidus Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 143–168. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Carvalho, A. M. and Child, M. (2011) Subject pronoun expression in a variety of Spanish in contact with Portuguese. In J. Michnowicz and R. Dodsworth (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 14–25. Somersville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Carvalho, A. M, Orozco, R. and Shin, N. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Cerrón-Palomino, Á. (2014) Ser o no ser pro: variación en la expresión de sujeto pronominal en el castellano limeño. Lingüística 30(1): 61–83.
Dunn, A. and Fox Tree, J. E. (2009) A Quick, Gradient Bilingual Dominance Scale. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(3): 273–289. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728909990113.
Erker, D. and Guy, G. (2012) The role of lexical frequency in syntactic variability: Variable subject personal pronoun expression in Spanish. Language 88(3): 526–557. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2012.0050.
Flores-Ferrán, N. (2004) Spanish subject personal pronoun use in New York City Puerto Ricans: Can we rest the case of English contact? Language Variation and Change 16(1): 49–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394504161048.
Hoffman, M. F., and Walker, J. A. (2010) Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English. Language Variation and Change 22(1): 37-67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394509990238.
Holmquist, J. (2012) Frequency rates and constraints on subject personal pronoun expression: Findings from the Puerto Rican highlands. Language Variation and Change 24(1): 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000117.
Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lapidus, N. and Otheguy, R. (2005) Overt nonspeci?c ellos in Spanish in New York. Spanish in Context 2(2): 157–174. https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.2.2.03lap.
Lastra, Y. and Martín Butragueño, P. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in oral Mexican Spanish. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 39–58. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Michnowicz, J. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in Yucatan Spanish. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 101–120. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Orozco, R. and Guy, G. (2008) El uso variable de los pronombres de sujetos: ¿qué pasa en la costa Caribe colombiana? In M. Westmoreland and J. A. Thomas (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 70–80. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Otheguy, R. (2014) Remarks on pronominal perseveration and functional explanation. In A. Enrique-Arias, M. Gutiérrez, A. Landa, and F. Ocampo (eds) Perspectives in the study of Spanish language variation: Papers in honor of Carmen Silva-Corvalán. Anejos de Verba 72: 373–397.
Otheguy, R. and Zentella, A. C. (2012) Spanish in New York. Language contact, dialectal leveling, and structural continuity. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737406.001.0001.
Otheguy, R., Zentella, A. C. and Livert, D. (2007) Language contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the formation of a speech community. Language 83(4): 770–802. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2008.0019.
Posio, P. (2011) Spanish subject pronoun usage and verb semantics revisited: First and second person singular subject pronouns and focusing of attention in spoken Peninsular Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 43(3): 777–798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.012.
Prada Pérez, A. de (2015) First person singular subject pronoun expression in Spanish in contact with Catalan. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 121–142. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Ranson, D. (1991) Person marking in the wake of /s/ deletion in Andalusian Spanish. Language Variation and Change 3(2): 133–152. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500000491.
Samper Padilla, J. A., Hernández Cabrera, C. E. and Troya Déniz, M. (2006) Presencia/ ausencia del sujeto pronominal de primera persona singular en la norma culta de España. In C. Company Company (ed.) El español en América. Diatopía, diacronía e historiografía 87–109. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Shin, N. L. (2014) Grammatical complexi?cation in Spanish in New York: 3sg pronoun expression and verbal ambiguity. Language Variation and Change 26(3): 303–330. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095439451400012X.
Shin, N. L. and Otheguy, R. (2013) Social class and gender impacting change in bilingual settings: Spanish subject pronoun use in New York. Language in Society 42: 429–452. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404513000468.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1982) Subject expression and placement in Mexican-American Spanish. In J. Amastae and L. Elías-Olivares (eds) Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic aspects 93–120. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1994) Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press.
Torres Cacoullos, R. and Travis, C. (2010) Variable yo expression in New Mexico: English in?uence? In S. Rivera-Mills and D. Villa (eds) Spanish of the U.S. Southwest: A language in transition 185–206. Madrid and Frankfurt: Vervuert and Iberoamericana.
Torres Cacoullos, R. and Travis, C. (2015) Foundations for the study of subject pronoun expression in Spanish in contact with English: Assessing interlinguistic (dis)similarity via intralinguistic variability. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 81–100. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Travis, C. (2005) The yo-yo effect. In R. Gess and E. J. Rubin (eds) Theoretical and experimental approaches to Romance Linguistics: Selected papers from the 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) 329–349. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.272.20tra.
Travis, C. (2007) Genre effects on subject expression in Spanish: Priming in narrative and conversation. Language Variation and Change 19(2): 101–136. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954394507070081.
Anderson, H. (2013) La in?uencia de la persona gramatical sobre la expresión del pronombre sujeto en el español del sur de Arizona. Divergencias: Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios 11(1): 35–47.
Bayley, R., Cárdenas, N. L., Treviño Schouten, B., and Vélez Salas, C. M. (2012) Spanish dialect contact in San Antonio, Texas: An exploratory study. In K. Geeslin and M. Díaz-Campos (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 48–60. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Bayley, R. and Pease-Álvarez, L. (1997) Null pronoun variation in Mexican-descent children’s narrative discourse. Language Variation and Change 9(3): 349–371. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001964.
Bentivoglio, P. (1987) Los sujetos pronominales de primera persona en el habla de Caracas. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Consejo de Desarrollo Cientí?co y Humanístico.
Cameron, R. (1993) Ambiguous agreement, functional compensation, and nonspeci?c tú in the Spanish of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Madrid, Spain. Language Variation and Change 5: 305–334. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001526.
Cameron, R. and Flores-Ferrán, N. (2004) Perseveration of subject expression across regional dialects of Spanish. Spanish in Context 1: 41–65. https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.1.1.05cam.
Carvalho, A. M. and Bessett, R. M. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish in contact with Portuguese. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco, and N. Lapidus Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 143–168. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Carvalho, A. M. and Child, M. (2011) Subject pronoun expression in a variety of Spanish in contact with Portuguese. In J. Michnowicz and R. Dodsworth (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 14–25. Somersville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Carvalho, A. M, Orozco, R. and Shin, N. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Cerrón-Palomino, Á. (2014) Ser o no ser pro: variación en la expresión de sujeto pronominal en el castellano limeño. Lingüística 30(1): 61–83.
Dunn, A. and Fox Tree, J. E. (2009) A Quick, Gradient Bilingual Dominance Scale. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(3): 273–289. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728909990113.
Erker, D. and Guy, G. (2012) The role of lexical frequency in syntactic variability: Variable subject personal pronoun expression in Spanish. Language 88(3): 526–557. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2012.0050.
Flores-Ferrán, N. (2004) Spanish subject personal pronoun use in New York City Puerto Ricans: Can we rest the case of English contact? Language Variation and Change 16(1): 49–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394504161048.
Hoffman, M. F., and Walker, J. A. (2010) Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English. Language Variation and Change 22(1): 37-67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394509990238.
Holmquist, J. (2012) Frequency rates and constraints on subject personal pronoun expression: Findings from the Puerto Rican highlands. Language Variation and Change 24(1): 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000117.
Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lapidus, N. and Otheguy, R. (2005) Overt nonspeci?c ellos in Spanish in New York. Spanish in Context 2(2): 157–174. https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.2.2.03lap.
Lastra, Y. and Martín Butragueño, P. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in oral Mexican Spanish. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 39–58. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Michnowicz, J. (2015) Subject pronoun expression in Yucatan Spanish. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 101–120. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Orozco, R. and Guy, G. (2008) El uso variable de los pronombres de sujetos: ¿qué pasa en la costa Caribe colombiana? In M. Westmoreland and J. A. Thomas (eds) Selected Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 70–80. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Otheguy, R. (2014) Remarks on pronominal perseveration and functional explanation. In A. Enrique-Arias, M. Gutiérrez, A. Landa, and F. Ocampo (eds) Perspectives in the study of Spanish language variation: Papers in honor of Carmen Silva-Corvalán. Anejos de Verba 72: 373–397.
Otheguy, R. and Zentella, A. C. (2012) Spanish in New York. Language contact, dialectal leveling, and structural continuity. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737406.001.0001.
Otheguy, R., Zentella, A. C. and Livert, D. (2007) Language contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the formation of a speech community. Language 83(4): 770–802. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2008.0019.
Posio, P. (2011) Spanish subject pronoun usage and verb semantics revisited: First and second person singular subject pronouns and focusing of attention in spoken Peninsular Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 43(3): 777–798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.012.
Prada Pérez, A. de (2015) First person singular subject pronoun expression in Spanish in contact with Catalan. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 121–142. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Ranson, D. (1991) Person marking in the wake of /s/ deletion in Andalusian Spanish. Language Variation and Change 3(2): 133–152. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500000491.
Samper Padilla, J. A., Hernández Cabrera, C. E. and Troya Déniz, M. (2006) Presencia/ ausencia del sujeto pronominal de primera persona singular en la norma culta de España. In C. Company Company (ed.) El español en América. Diatopía, diacronía e historiografía 87–109. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Shin, N. L. (2014) Grammatical complexi?cation in Spanish in New York: 3sg pronoun expression and verbal ambiguity. Language Variation and Change 26(3): 303–330. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095439451400012X.
Shin, N. L. and Otheguy, R. (2013) Social class and gender impacting change in bilingual settings: Spanish subject pronoun use in New York. Language in Society 42: 429–452. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404513000468.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1982) Subject expression and placement in Mexican-American Spanish. In J. Amastae and L. Elías-Olivares (eds) Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic aspects 93–120. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1994) Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press.
Torres Cacoullos, R. and Travis, C. (2010) Variable yo expression in New Mexico: English in?uence? In S. Rivera-Mills and D. Villa (eds) Spanish of the U.S. Southwest: A language in transition 185–206. Madrid and Frankfurt: Vervuert and Iberoamericana.
Torres Cacoullos, R. and Travis, C. (2015) Foundations for the study of subject pronoun expression in Spanish in contact with English: Assessing interlinguistic (dis)similarity via intralinguistic variability. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco and N. Shin (eds) Subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectal perspective 81–100. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Travis, C. (2005) The yo-yo effect. In R. Gess and E. J. Rubin (eds) Theoretical and experimental approaches to Romance Linguistics: Selected papers from the 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) 329–349. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.272.20tra.
Travis, C. (2007) Genre effects on subject expression in Spanish: Priming in narrative and conversation. Language Variation and Change 19(2): 101–136. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954394507070081.
Published
2017-01-20
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Articles
How to Cite
Cerron-Palomino, A. (2017). (No) English interference on U.S. Southwest Spanish? A look at variable subject expression in Phoenix Spanish-English bilinguals. Sociolinguistic Studies, 10(3), 383-408. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v10i3.28327
